CCT 356 Online Advertising and Marketing Hu, Ke 998584517
Assignment 1: Online Ad Critique
The Internet has changed the world in which we sell. It reaches beyond being a new channel for marketing and offers a new paradigm for the way consumers connect with brands and with each other. The online medium provides consumers with more choice, more influence and more power. Brands have new ways of selling, new products and services to sell as well as new markets in which to sell.
--- EMarketing the essential guide to digital marketing
Case 1: Burt’s Bees---Lips Go Bloom
Burt’s Bees is an American manufacturer of earth-friendly, natural personal care products since 1984 (Wikipedia). In 2011, it launched its new line of Tined Lip Balm. To make consumers get familiar with this new line and promote the new products, Burt’s Bees create a one and half minutes animated short and release it on YouTube. All the lines, figures and images were drawn with the real Tinted Lip Balm. The lyrics of the song in the short video is talking about being natural, being yourself, which is exactly the brand concept of Burt’s Bees. The simple and stylish hand-drawing lines in a pink warm color convey the idea of blossom of this new line in a cute and a vivid mood.
At the same time, Burt’s Bees also start an interactive campaign “Lips Go Blossom” on Facebook, where I first notice this online campaign. Many friends share their experience about the new product and the brand, and the ideas people think about natural beauty in their eyes. Fans become part of the campaign and have an active participation. A link of the video can be also found on Burt’s Facebook page. This campaign target at US female consumers over 18, which is really a large potential consumer base. Through the interaction on Facebook and the issue of the cute video, the brand awareness of the new line product, as well as the engagement in the fans are largely promoted.
As a result of the prosperity of Internet, online video and social media adverts show new power in commercial society. The rich content in video commercial attract consumers. The content creating and sharing, instant update and social network characters of social media hugely facilitate the engagement and interaction with the brand and keep the retention of consumers (338). “The higher engagement rates that Burt’s Bees saw with its Sponsored Stories speak to the word-of-mouth appeal of the brand and the beauty category in general If people see that their friends like the brand and that their friends are endorsing it, then they have a much higher likelihood to engage”, indicated by Mariah Kulp Burt’s Bees Director of Marketing Communications.
The data and reports from Burt’s Bees also prove the effectiveness of this online campaign. The combination of the video commercial and social media adverts drive more than 200,000 new Likes. Until August 2011, Burt’s Bees has fans over 675,000 on Facebook. And the play times of the “Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short” exceed 20,000. There are 2.1 million organic impressions generated during the media flights.
Conclusion: The “24 hour on air” ability of online video and social media adverts reach its largest audience, comparing to any other traditional media. Interaction, sharing and up to date, all these features of online marketing create new profiting points to enterprises.
Case 2: Coca Cola and Tencent QQ Online Torch Relay Campaign
During March to August in 2008, Coca Cola in China raised an online Olympic torch relay campaign, cooperating with Tencent QQ, China’s largest and most popular free online instant messaging computer program in mainland China. Before this campaign, Coca Cola Company recruited 8888 first torch relay ambassadors from their official website for 8888 torch relay routes. The 8888 torch relay routes on QQ started simultaneously with the real torch relay from Greece. During this period, all QQ users can participate in this campaign.
The first time I came across the campaign was in May, 2008. I invite my friends on QQ to enlighten the torch and I become the virtual torchbearer and rewarded an enlightened torch icon on my QQ account. When moving mouse on the torch icon, a floating advert will show up indicating the population of participants, the geographical location of the virtual torch right now, etc.; most importantly, is the link of the Coca Cola Olympics website. By clicking the link, QQ users are directed to the Coca Cola Olympics official website. Through this online campaign, Coca Cola use online advertising interacts with consumers rather than directly sell the product to them. As a result, by establishing the connection with Coca Cola and Olympics, this online campaign build and imprint the brand awareness, which is one of the functions of online advertising, increasing share of voice in the market place (201).
This marketing campaign was indeed successful. Coca Cola Company chose the right partner, Tencent QQ, who had more than 200 million users and 80 percent of them are under 35. These young people were the target market of Coca Cola Company and were most enthusiastic about Olympics. Coca Cola grab this huge opportunity. The final figures reported by Coca Cola shows that there were more than 135 million participants, among which 62094896 torchbearers successfully relay the Olympic torch. The tips exposure more than 650 million times per day on the customer side.
Through this campaign, customers got a chance to directly interact with Coca Cola, building connection with Olympics. The brand image of Coca Cola Company was widely and deeply enforced. Thus, it is a successful online campaign.
Developing with the technology, e-shopping catalyze e-marketing. The huge profits derived from online shopping gives strong incentive for formulating effective online marketing campaign. These three banner ads are online marketing campaign designed for a fake client, large store named SUPERMARKET. SUPERMARKET is a large retailer selling various merchandises. And it always offers many amazing deals during big festivals. Here is the online campaign, three banner ads at different sizes are designed for Christmas promotion of SUPERMARKET. Logo of SUPERMARKET is a blue elk which means good luck and gifts. Customers will know this is SUPERMARKET once they see the blue elk just as they see an bite apple for APPLE. As in many countries and areas, Christmas is the biggest event for a battle of consumption. This campaign target at young ladies under 35 and kids under 14. There are several goals of this campaign: 1. build and imprint brand awareness;2. create and satisfy consumers needs; 3. increase sale. Banner advertising is one of the most used formats for promotion on largely viewed websites. Thus, placement of these three banner ads is to be on popular websites, like Toronto Star to gain largest exposure. Due to the high impressions, there is a large chance to be clicked to the main website. A successful banner ad should encourage the impulse to click on it, seizing maximum potential consumers. An eye-catching look is the first step to draw attention. Therefore, in my design of the banner ads, I use the flash animation, which is more vividly conveying the promotion, attracting more attention staying on. Besides, I choose the cartoon style animations to meet the fairy tale Christmas mood. All three banner ads are imbed with the blue elk logo and will be placed on same webpage together. Besides the SUPERMARKET store buy all the stock space of banner ads from blocking any competitors' ads at one page, audience will recognize the three banner are from one company without confusion.
728 x 90 leaderboard
The first is a leaderboard banner ad at 728x90 pixels. This ad is a general greeting from SUPERMARKET for Christmas to build brand awareness. Deer, snowman, snowflake are all symbolic elements for Christmas. The flashing in gift in the middle can be read in two ways; one is 'Hey, come to SUPERMARKET and grab a Christmas gift for ones you loved'; another meaning is that ‘Come to shop at SUPERMARKET, we have free Christmas gift for you'! Both ways are calling for consumption at SUPERMARKET. The symbolic images of Christmas can always summon a warm-hearted and loving feeling, satisfying the Christmas atmosphere, happiness, best wishes and family gathering.
120 x 600 skyscraper
Second is skyscraper advert at 120x600 pixels, mainly introducing the sale products, which is crucial to drive actual sales. As Christmas sale is a big time for large household appliances, like TV, washing machine, etc. Thus the sales products shown on this banner ad enable consumers to get more detail information on the attractive deals. The background color is transition between green and red, which is the representative color of Christmas; meanwhile, red is very prominent to tell consumers sales in ongoing. The shopping cart flashing in at the beginning of the advert is a strong signal of “Call to Action”, encouraging consumers to purchase. The mouse arrow will become a hand to redirect customers to the homepage of SUPERSTORE official website.
200 x200 square
The third flash is a square banner at 200x200 pixels. FREE SHIPPING, always another great incentive for online shoppers. This means you can enjoy the same products and service same as in retailing stores, plus, bunches of coupon codes application, more discount, and one-click, your goods are at your door. No overnight lining in cold winds and snowing Boxing Day. And especially for someone you cannot meet face to face, buying a gift online and send to him/her is a big surprise to express your sincere Christmas greeting. A guaranteed delivery before Christmas gives you a guaranteed surprise for your loved. The animation of the Santa, rather than a truck, indicates that your gift are brought to you by the magic speedy "Santa", reminding consumers their beautiful dreams about the Santa gift, when they were little kids.
Some challenges: As the limited space in banner ads, information must be told to consumers in a very short and concise way. When choosing the size of the banner ads, it’s really hard to decide. Because bigger banner advert can tell more information to consumers. But have to consider about the placement budget, and “Consumers are suffering from advertising fatigue”. Banner adverts can be annoying and intrusive to consumers. They may ignore these adverts. Then the campaign couldn't function well.
This article looks into how consumers behavior change through the use of social media and how organizations react to these changes. Today, there are many channels that customers can interact with organizations. Traditional methods like letters or visiting the store do not disappear while online chats, email enquiries are more convenient. As the convenience technology brought to our life, customers require more efficient response than ever, like average handling time, first contact resolution, etc. Social media has changed customers’ expectations and behaviors which request organizations communicate with customer effectively. According to Leon’s research, social media like Twitter has 175 million registered users, among which 95 million tweets a day. The pervasiveness of social media distributes and spreads information extremely quickly. Customers are no longer waiting for you to respond. They are becoming more active, holing more freedom to talk. Organizations can not simply stay and waiting for problems. They have to become more responsive, more elastic to problems. Thus, they use the users’ data of social media to categorize customers into different behaviourgaphic types. Organizations actively to respond and solve complains and utilize social media to maintain and operate the reputation management.
This article talks about the differences between opt-in email marketing and spam email. Email marketing is a cost effective online marketing strategy. Due to the low cost of sending emails to promote products, many firms utilize this method. But there is a possibility of spam if you don't get the permission from receivers. It is legitimate as long as email sender can prove their sending emails to receivers who are on their opt-in list. Opt-in email can maintain good relationship with customers as firms show respect of privacy, thus it is efficient to keep regular base of customers retention. As receivers are registered, firms’ email is more targeted and relevant to them. This is beneficial to keep long term customers. However, spam email is very intrusive. The reputation and impression of a firm will be damaged if they keep spamming emails. Customers won’t react to these emails and the click through rate will drop and may put them into black name list. In the long run business cycle, firms highly risk in losing lots of customers.
Hu, Ke 998584517
Assignment 1: Online Ad Critique
The Internet has changed the world in which we sell. It reaches beyond being a new channel for marketing and offers a new paradigm for the way consumers connect with brands and with each other. The online medium provides consumers with more choice, more influence and more power. Brands have new ways of selling, new products and services to sell as well as new markets in which to sell.
--- EMarketing the essential guide to digital marketing
Case 1: Burt’s Bees---Lips Go Bloom
Burt’s Bees is an American manufacturer of earth-friendly, natural personal care products since 1984 (Wikipedia). In 2011, it launched its new line of Tined Lip Balm. To make consumers get familiar with this new line and promote the new products, Burt’s Bees create a one and half minutes animated short and release it on YouTube. All the lines, figures and images were drawn with the real Tinted Lip Balm. The lyrics of the song in the short video is talking about being natural, being yourself, which is exactly the brand concept of Burt’s Bees. The simple and stylish hand-drawing lines in a pink warm color convey the idea of blossom of this new line in a cute and a vivid mood.
At the same time, Burt’s Bees also start an interactive campaign “Lips Go Blossom” on Facebook, where I first notice this online campaign. Many friends share their experience about the new product and the brand, and the ideas people think about natural beauty in their eyes. Fans become part of the campaign and have an active participation. A link of the video can be also found on Burt’s Facebook page. This campaign target at US female consumers over 18, which is really a large potential consumer base. Through the interaction on Facebook and the issue of the cute video, the brand awareness of the new line product, as well as the engagement in the fans are largely promoted.
As a result of the prosperity of Internet, online video and social media adverts show new power in commercial society. The rich content in video commercial attract consumers. The content creating and sharing, instant update and social network characters of social media hugely facilitate the engagement and interaction with the brand and keep the retention of consumers (338). “The higher engagement rates that Burt’s Bees saw with its Sponsored Stories speak to the word-of-mouth appeal of the brand and the beauty category in general If people see that their friends like the brand and that their friends are endorsing it, then they have a much higher likelihood to engage”, indicated by Mariah Kulp Burt’s Bees Director of Marketing Communications.
The data and reports from Burt’s Bees also prove the effectiveness of this online campaign. The combination of the video commercial and social media adverts drive more than 200,000 new Likes. Until August 2011, Burt’s Bees has fans over 675,000 on Facebook. And the play times of the “Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short” exceed 20,000. There are 2.1 million organic impressions generated during the media flights.
Conclusion: The “24 hour on air” ability of online video and social media adverts reach its largest audience, comparing to any other traditional media. Interaction, sharing and up to date, all these features of online marketing create new profiting points to enterprises.
Work cited:
1. EMarketing the essential guide to digital marketing. P 338.
http://resources.quirk.biz/ebookv4/Engage/Part3_Chapter14_Social_Media_Channels.pdf?ac=4oYh6H
2. Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short
http://www.commarts.com/exhibit/burts-bees-tinted-lip-balms.html
3. Burt’s Bees. Wikipedia. 2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt%27s_Bees
4. Facebook Burt’s Bees
http://www.facebook.com/burtsbees
5. YouTube Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNU7DcmKHoI
Case 2: Coca Cola and Tencent QQ Online Torch Relay Campaign
During March to August in 2008, Coca Cola in China raised an online Olympic torch relay campaign, cooperating with Tencent QQ, China’s largest and most popular free online instant messaging computer program in mainland China. Before this campaign, Coca Cola Company recruited 8888 first torch relay ambassadors from their official website for 8888 torch relay routes. The 8888 torch relay routes on QQ started simultaneously with the real torch relay from Greece. During this period, all QQ users can participate in this campaign.
The first time I came across the campaign was in May, 2008. I invite my friends on QQ to enlighten the torch and I become the virtual torchbearer and rewarded an enlightened torch icon on my QQ account. When moving mouse on the torch icon, a floating advert will show up indicating the population of participants, the geographical location of the virtual torch right now, etc.; most importantly, is the link of the Coca Cola Olympics website. By clicking the link, QQ users are directed to the Coca Cola Olympics official website. Through this online campaign, Coca Cola use online advertising interacts with consumers rather than directly sell the product to them. As a result, by establishing the connection with Coca Cola and Olympics, this online campaign build and imprint the brand awareness, which is one of the functions of online advertising, increasing share of voice in the market place (201).
This marketing campaign was indeed successful. Coca Cola Company chose the right partner, Tencent QQ, who had more than 200 million users and 80 percent of them are under 35. These young people were the target market of Coca Cola Company and were most enthusiastic about Olympics. Coca Cola grab this huge opportunity. The final figures reported by Coca Cola shows that there were more than 135 million participants, among which 62094896 torchbearers successfully relay the Olympic torch. The tips exposure more than 650 million times per day on the customer side.
Through this campaign, customers got a chance to directly interact with Coca Cola, building connection with Olympics. The brand image of Coca Cola Company was widely and deeply enforced. Thus, it is a successful online campaign.
Work cited:
1. EMarketing the essential guide to digital marketing. P 201.
http://resources.quirk.biz/ebookv4/Engage/Part3_Chapter8_Online_Advertising.pdf?ac=6sm1vs
2. Coca Cola torch relay with Tencent case study
http://doc.mbalib.com/view/e695c2a21df6483160dbf962cc351945.html
3. The virtual torch relay participants reached 60,000,000 create a new record
http://2008.qq.com/a/20080724/000127.htm
Assignment 2:Online Ad Design
Developing with the technology, e-shopping catalyze e-marketing. The huge profits derived from online shopping gives strong incentive for formulating effective online marketing campaign. These three banner ads are online marketing campaign designed for a fake client, large store named SUPERMARKET. SUPERMARKET is a large retailer selling various merchandises. And it always offers many amazing deals during big festivals. Here is the online campaign, three banner ads at different sizes are designed for Christmas promotion of SUPERMARKET. Logo of SUPERMARKET is a blue elk which means good luck and gifts. Customers will know this is SUPERMARKET once they see the blue elk just as they see an bite apple for APPLE. As in many countries and areas, Christmas is the biggest event for a battle of consumption. This campaign target at young ladies under 35 and kids under 14. There are several goals of this campaign: 1. build and imprint brand awareness;2. create and satisfy consumers needs; 3. increase sale.
Banner advertising is one of the most used formats for promotion on largely viewed websites. Thus, placement of these three banner ads is to be on popular websites, like Toronto Star to gain largest exposure. Due to the high impressions, there is a large chance to be clicked to the main website. A successful banner ad should encourage the impulse to click on it, seizing maximum potential consumers. An eye-catching look is the first step to draw attention. Therefore, in my design of the banner ads, I use the flash animation, which is more vividly conveying the promotion, attracting more attention staying on. Besides, I choose the cartoon style animations to meet the fairy tale Christmas mood.
All three banner ads are imbed with the blue elk logo and will be placed on same webpage together. Besides the SUPERMARKET store buy all the stock space of banner ads from blocking any competitors' ads at one page, audience will recognize the three banner are from one company without confusion.
728 x 90 leaderboard
The first is a leaderboard banner ad at 728x90 pixels. This ad is a general greeting from SUPERMARKET for Christmas to build brand awareness. Deer, snowman, snowflake are all symbolic elements for Christmas. The flashing in gift in the middle can be read in two ways; one is 'Hey, come to SUPERMARKET and grab a Christmas gift for ones you loved'; another meaning is that ‘Come to shop at SUPERMARKET, we have free Christmas gift for you'! Both ways are calling for consumption at SUPERMARKET. The symbolic images of Christmas can always summon a warm-hearted and loving feeling, satisfying the Christmas atmosphere, happiness, best wishes and family gathering.
120 x 600 skyscraper
Second is skyscraper advert at 120x600 pixels, mainly introducing the sale products, which is crucial to drive actual sales. As Christmas sale is a big time for large household appliances, like TV, washing machine, etc. Thus the sales products shown on this banner ad enable consumers to get more detail information on the attractive deals. The background color is transition between green and red, which is the representative color of Christmas; meanwhile, red is very prominent to tell consumers sales in ongoing. The shopping cart flashing in at the beginning of the advert is a strong signal of “Call to Action”, encouraging consumers to purchase. The mouse arrow will become a hand to redirect customers to the homepage of SUPERSTORE official website.
200 x 200 square
The third flash is a square banner at 200x200 pixels. FREE SHIPPING, always another great incentive for online shoppers. This means you can enjoy the same products and service same as in retailing stores, plus, bunches of coupon codes application, more discount, and one-click, your goods are at your door. No overnight lining in cold winds and snowing Boxing Day. And especially for someone you cannot meet face to face, buying a gift online and send to him/her is a big surprise to express your sincere Christmas greeting. A guaranteed delivery before Christmas gives you a guaranteed surprise for your loved. The animation of the Santa, rather than a truck, indicates that your gift are brought to you by the magic speedy "Santa", reminding consumers their beautiful dreams about the Santa gift, when they were little kids.
Some challenges: As the limited space in banner ads, information must be told to consumers in a very short and concise way. When choosing the size of the banner ads, it’s really hard to decide. Because bigger banner advert can tell more information to consumers. But have to consider about the placement budget, and “Consumers are suffering from advertising fatigue”. Banner adverts can be annoying and intrusive to consumers. They may ignore these adverts. Then the campaign couldn't function well.
Work cited:
EMarketing the essential guide to digital marketing.
http://resources.quirk.biz/ebookv4/Engage/Part3_Chapter8_Online_Advertising.pdf?ac=rlumnK
Assignment 3: Annotated Bibliography
Article 1: Moving beyond transactional customer relationships with social media
Source:
http://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/1711-7381/Moving-beyond-transactional-customer-relationships-with-social-media.html
Keywords: customer relationship, social media, technology.
This article looks into how consumers behavior change through the use of social media and how organizations react to these changes. Today, there are many channels that customers can interact with organizations. Traditional methods like letters or visiting the store do not disappear while online chats, email enquiries are more convenient. As the convenience technology brought to our life, customers require more efficient response than ever, like average handling time, first contact resolution, etc. Social media has changed customers’ expectations and behaviors which request organizations communicate with customer effectively. According to Leon’s research, social media like Twitter has 175 million registered users, among which 95 million tweets a day. The pervasiveness of social media distributes and spreads information extremely quickly. Customers are no longer waiting for you to respond. They are becoming more active, holing more freedom to talk. Organizations can not simply stay and waiting for problems. They have to become more responsive, more elastic to problems. Thus, they use the users’ data of social media to categorize customers into different behaviourgaphic types. Organizations actively to respond and solve complains and utilize social media to maintain and operate the reputation management.
Article 2: Opt-in Email Marketing Vs. Bulk Email Spam
Source:http://www.benchmarkemail.com/resources/email-marketing-articles/Opt-In-Email-Vs.-Bulk-Email-Spam
Keywords: spam, email marketing, perils.
This article talks about the differences between opt-in email marketing and spam email. Email marketing is a cost effective online marketing strategy. Due to the low cost of sending emails to promote products, many firms utilize this method. But there is a possibility of spam if you don't get the permission from receivers. It is legitimate as long as email sender can prove their sending emails to receivers who are on their opt-in list. Opt-in email can maintain good relationship with customers as firms show respect of privacy, thus it is efficient to keep regular base of customers retention. As receivers are registered, firms’ email is more targeted and relevant to them. This is beneficial to keep long term customers. However, spam email is very intrusive. The reputation and impression of a firm will be damaged if they keep spamming emails. Customers won’t react to these emails and the click through rate will drop and may put them into black name list. In the long run business cycle, firms highly risk in losing lots of customers.